Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future

In the spirit of Steve Jobs and Moneyball, Elon Musk is both an illuminating and authorized look at the extraordinary life of one of Silicon Valley's most exciting, unpredictable, and ambitious entrepreneurs - a real-life Tony Stark - and a fascinating exploration of the renewal of American invention and its new makers.

Einstein: His Life and Universe

Why we think it’s a great listen: You thought he was a stodgy scientist with funny hair, but Isaacson and Hermann reveal an eloquent, intense, and selfless human being who not only shaped science with his theories, but politics and world events in the 20th century as well. Based on the newly released personal letters of Albert Einstein, Walter Isaacson explores how an imaginative, impertinent patent clerk became the mind reader of the creator of the cosmos.

The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life

Here is THE book recounting the life and times of one of the most respected men in the world, Warren Buffett. The legendary Omaha investor has never written a memoir, but now he has allowed one writer, Alice Schroeder, unprecedented access to explore directly with him and with those closest to him his work, opinions, struggles, triumphs, follies, and wisdom. The result is the personally revealing and complete biography of the man known everywhere as "The Oracle of Omaha."

The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon

Amazon.com started off delivering books through the mail. But its visionary founder, Jeff Bezos, wasn't content with being a bookseller. He wanted Amazon to become the everything store, offering limitless selection and seductive convenience at disruptively low prices. To do so, he developed a corporate culture of relentless ambition and secrecy that's never been cracked. Until now.

The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution

Following his blockbuster biography of Steve Jobs, The Innovators is Walter Isaacson’s revealing story of the people who created the computer and the Internet. It is destined to be the standard history of the digital revolution and an indispensable guide to how innovation really happens. What were the talents that allowed certain inventors and entrepreneurs to turn their visionary ideas into disruptive realities? What led to their creative leaps? Why did some succeed and others fail?

Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike

In this candid and riveting memoir, for the first time ever, Nike founder and CEO Phil Knight shares the inside story of the company's early days as an intrepid start-up and its evolution into one of the world's most iconic, game-changing, and profitable brands.

The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience

Whether he was introducing the latest iPad or delivering a keynote presentation, Steve Jobs electrified audiences with his incomparable style and showmanship. He didn’t just convey information in his presentations; he told a story, painted a picture, and shared a vision. He gave his audience a transformative experience that was unique, inspiring, and unforgettable. Now you can do it too, by learning the specific techniques that made Jobs the most captivating communicator on the world stage.

Google Executive Chairman and ex-CEO Eric Schmidt and former SVP of Products Jonathan Rosenberg came to Google over a decade ago as proven technology executives. At the time, the company was already well-known for doing things differently, reflecting the visionary - and frequently contrarian - principles of founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. If Eric and Jonathan were going to succeed, they realized they would have to relearn everything they thought they knew about management and business.

Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

Benjamin Franklin is the founding father who winks at us - an ambitious urban entrepreneur who rose up the social ladder, from leather-aproned shopkeeper to dining with kings. In best-selling author Walter Isaacson's vivid and witty full-scale biography, we discover why Franklin turns to us from history's stage with eyes that twinkle from behind his new-fangled spectacles. In Benjamin Franklin, Isaacson shows how Franklin defines both his own time and ours. The most interesting thing that Franklin invented, and continually reinvented, was himself.

The Virgin Way: Everything I Know about Leadership

While building the Virgin Group over 40 years, Richard Branson has never shied away from seemingly outlandish challenges that others (including his own colleagues on several occasions) considered sheer lunacy. He has taken on giants like British Airways and won, and monsters like Coca-Cola and lost. Now Branson gives an inside look at his strikingly different swashbuckling style of leadership.

Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions

All our lives are constrained by limited space and time, limits that give rise to a particular set of problems. What should we do, or leave undone, in a day or a lifetime? How much messiness should we accept? What balance of new activities and familiar favorites is the most fulfilling? These may seem like uniquely human quandaries, but they are not: computers, too, face the same constraints, so computer scientists have been grappling with their version of such problems for decades.

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. And the next Mark Zuckerberg won't create a social network. If you are copying these guys, you aren't learning from them. It's easier to copy a model than to make something new: doing what we already know how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. But every time we create something new, we go from 0 to 1.

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

At its core, The Power of Habit contains an exhilarating argument: The key to exercising regularly, losing weight, raising exceptional children, becoming more productive, building revolutionary companies and social movements, and achieving success is understanding how habits work. Habits aren’t destiny. As Charles Duhigg shows, by harnessing this new science, we can transform our businesses, our communities, and our lives.

Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built

In just a decade and a half, Jack Ma, a man from modest beginnings who started out as an English teacher, founded Alibaba and built it into one of the world's largest companies, an e-commerce empire on which hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers depend. Alibaba's $25 billion IPO in 2014 was the largest global IPO ever. A Rockefeller of his age who is courted by CEOs and presidents around the world, Jack is an icon for China's booming private sector.

Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

Creativity, Inc. is a book for managers who want to lead their employees to new heights, a manual for anyone who strives for originality, and the first-ever, all-access trip into the nerve center of Pixar Animation - into the meetings, postmortems, and "Braintrust" sessions where some of the most successful films in history are made. It is, at heart, a book about how to build a creative culture - but it is also, as Pixar co-founder and president Ed Catmull writes, "an expression of the ideas that I believe make the best in us possible."

Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader

There have been many books - on a large and small scale - about Steve Jobs, one of the most famous CEOs in history. But this book is different from all the others. Becoming Steve Jobs takes on and breaks down the existing myth and stereotypes about Steve Jobs. The conventional, one-dimensional view of Jobs is that he was half genius, half jerk from youth, an irascible and selfish leader who slighted friends and family alike.

Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.

Titan is the first full-length biography based on unrestricted access to Rockefeller’s exceptionally rich trove of papers. A landmark publication full of startling revelations, the book indelibly alters our image of this most enigmatic capitalist. Born the son of a flamboyant, bigamous snake-oil salesman and a pious, straitlaced mother, Rockefeller rose from rustic origins to become the world’s richest man by creating America’s most powerful and feared monopoly, Standard Oil. Branded "the Octopus" by legions of muckrakers, the trust refined and marketed nearly 90 percent of the oil produced in America.

Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose

In this, his first audiobook, Tony Hsieh - the widely admired CEO of Zappos, the online shoe retailer -explains how he created a unique culture and commitment to service that aims to improve the lives of its employees, customers, vendors, and backers. Using anecdotes and stories from his own life experiences, and from other companies, Hsieh provides concrete ways that companies can achieve unprecedented success.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life

For decades we've been told that positive thinking is the key to a happy, rich life. "F*ck positivity," Mark Manson says. "Let's be honest, shit is f*cked, and we have to live with it." In his wildly popular Internet blog, Manson doesn't sugarcoat or equivocate. He tells it like it is - a dose of raw, refreshing, honest truth that is sorely lacking today. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck is his antidote to the coddling, let's-all-feel-good mind-set that has infected modern society and spoiled a generation, rewarding them with gold medals just for showing up.

Stephen R. Covey's book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, has been a top seller for the simple reason that it ignores trends and pop psychology for proven principles of fairness, integrity, honesty, and human dignity. Celebrating its 15th year of helping people solve personal and professional problems, this special anniversary edition includes a new foreword and afterword written by Covey that explore whether the 7 Habits are still relevant and answer some of the most common questions he has received over the past 15 years.

Think and Grow Rich

Think and Grow Rich is the number-one inspirational and motivational classic for individuals who are interested in furthering their lives and reaching their goals by learning from important figures in history. The text read in this audiobook is the original 1937 edition written by Napoleon Hill and inspired by Andrew Carnegie - and while it has often been reproduced, no updated version has ever been able to compete with the original.

Publisher's Summary

In Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography, Isaacson provides an extraordinary account of Jobs' professional and personal life. Drawn from three years of exclusive and unprecedented interviews Isaacson has conducted with Jobs as well as extensive interviews with Jobs' family members and key colleagues from Apple and its competitors, Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography is the definitive portrait of the greatest innovator of his generation.

At the end of this book Isaacson gives us some new information, especially relating to Job's family. This was great and makes the book worth the price.

But be clear that stuff up until 1985 is far better covered in the books Isaacson has taken the stories from (sometimes distorting them in the process).

Check out: Revolution in the Valley Infinite Loop Return to the Little Kingdomfor the source material of these stories.

Isaacson seems to lack the knowledge of the technical aspects and the curiosity to ask people who do know to tell the wheat from the chaff in these early stories. He will present stuff that doesn't matter and trim away stuff that does. If the only source you have for these stories is Isaacson's book you will have a distorted, and sometimes false, impression of what happened.

Now I suspect Isaacson would say he was interested in the man and the life lived and not so much these technical details. That's, in fact what I expected this book to be about with most of this tech stuff skimmed over. But Isaacson chooses to put in a substantial amount of details where he clearly doesn't know what they mean in themselves and fails to examine usefully what they tell us about the life being examined.

I don't want to give the impression this is a bad book. It is not. It is fine. But it is flawed in several ways because Isaacson seems to be disinterested in the tech and disinterested in examining what the tech means.

This could have been a better book if it was more about the man and floated past some of the tech bits that are inexact retellings of stories that Andy Hertzfeld and others have told better and, in my opinion, used better to paint what the man was like in his 20s.

I think Isaacson did not make the best use if the fact the he was given the power of 'exclusive'. As others have said, just as Steve chose the wrong guy for Apple when he chose Scully he chose the wrong guy for this book when he chose Isaacson. So many other people who had the writing skills aligned with a passionate interest in the subject could have done more with this unique opportunity. Isaacson's approach is solid, professional but pedestrian and uninspired given the amazing power he was given.

Anyway, get the book, it's well done an easily worth the money, However, do be careful about quoting too much of the details to those who are better informed on the subject because the list of corrections of technical fact and/or context you may get will be tedious for all concerned.

Firstly, I don't really understand the complaints about the reader. I thought he was fine.

This is a great book, very timely and obviously one of Steve Jobs last works with him commissioning it so that his story would be told, warts and all. I couldn't put it down.

It so sad to think that we hoped Steve Jobs would show up for the announcement of the iPhone 4S when he was in fact so close to death. The book details the back story behind the releases of the iPhone and iPad and you get the impression that Jobs put all of his strength into them once he knew that his time was limited. The impending tragedy of his early death in some way contributed to some of his greatest achievements.

Only being a recent Mac convert, much of the early history was new to me. I probably disliked Steve Jobs and Bill Gates equally throughout the 90s but my impressions of them changed throughout the book. I really have a much greater respect for Bill Gates as a result of the character that is revealed in the book. I feel I have understood what Steve Jobs was about and what he was trying to achieve. Steve Wozniak comes across as the wonderful Tom Bombadill character that we know and love.

It' s hard to summarize what I feel about Steve Jobs. So much to admire, but such a flawed character. Very thought provoking story.

I found this audio book to be one of the best books i have heard. It was refreshing to actually hear the real stories behind the man. There is no doubt that Walter Isaacson has truly got a very detailed behind the scene account of some of the dealings not only with Jobs, but with Apple, Pixar, Next, Mac plus much more. Fantastic book

Walter Isaacson has written an honest and thought provoking biography of Steve Jobs. He has been able to show how Steve Jobs' personality has evolved, although the trademarks of brat, business man and visionary were always lurking in the background. I think this biography do more than pay homage to Jobs, it also can serve as a history - be it from a specific point of view - of Silicon Valley and more so the Apple company.

Dylan Baker reading didn't impressed me so much. It was fair, yet not as engaging as I would've expect. At times I had to rewind to relisten as I opted out, and it was definitely not because of the content.

However, this biography comes highly recommended as Steve Jobs' story is one that deserves to be listened to.

Walter Isaacson commits the Cardinal literary sin of telling us what Seve Jobs did with his life rather than showing us what he did. Instead of weaving a series of narratives -- rather than relating the stories that made up the life and times of Steve Jobs -- Isaacson throws a lot of quotes at us from Jobs and others. He fills in the spaces between these quotes with a few odd details, very few of which the reader/listener can really latch onto and use to build a moving narrative in the mind's eye.

And that's a shame, considering Isaacson was writing about an evil genius who touched hundreds of millions of people, disrupted numerous industries and left behind a legacy that is already being compared to Leonardo Da Vinci.

Fact is, there is a much, much better biography of Seve Jobs, and it is even available on audible: Alan Deutchman's "The Second Coming of Seve Jobs," published in 2001. Deutchman relates all the same tales, except he actually shows us the life of this man through the power of narrative. And except that Deutchman actually includes details that are rich in evocative power.

Very inspiring.. i love Steve's childhood with all the "pranks", and the Tom-&-Hack team of Oaf Tobark and Berkeley Blue with their Blue-Box adventure...calling the Vatican, i wish i was there with them! Very inspiring business/life's philosophy.... a page turner! Steve Jobs, simply magical! iInspired!

I would listen to this book again after a short time has passed, I worked for apple, and found it explained some of the thing I did not understand about the way the did something's, this helped me see the why in there actions. Also the book is the first real insight we get into Steve jobs, and as such it's a large book to be able to ingest all at once. There is much to discover in this books and for that I would read it again.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Steve Jobs?

There was not one moment, as I am well versed in the history of apple, but I do rambler the parts where he traveled to India and sort his guru, and how he followed the zen budaist way. This was the most memorable moment as I too was born in India, understand the sights and smell he must of seen, and my parents and to some exstent also my self believe in buda. So it was nice to see a massive tech giant deal with lifes conflicting decision and what would drive him to make great products.

Which scene was your favorite?

As stated above the part heading to India, but there many other nice moment that brought a smile to my face, like working for Atari, or building the iPhone, the next cube, but there was some moments that will frustrate you also, like the canca, and what he did around his kids, how he treated people, and so on, but in the end it's all one man's life and there is much that can be learn from it.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

It is in possible to listen to in in one sitting, but I spend the corse of two week traveling back fourth from work, listening to the story unfold.

Any additional comments?

Great book to understand the man Steve Jobs, but not the book to understand apple, or how the company will and did create the products they have. It's not a book about a poor kid becomes good, it's a real life experience on some one who was greate and a complete arsshole at times. In short read and enjoy, but don't use it as some sort of study bible.

His life story may not be different to some of us but he has contributed significant accomplishments to the digital world. He has proven to the world that any person can make a difference regardless of where he or she came from.

I'm not a fan of all of the approaches that Apple take to their products, but I do greatly appreciate and respect what they do well, and there's an awful lot they do exceptionally well.

With that proviso I found this book excellent and informative, I learnt things that I wasn't aware with regard to the links between Jobs / Wozniak and the early days of computing in the home, that I grew up with as a child. I also gained a great insight into the incredible attention to detail that has been part of everything Jobs has been involved in.

Jobs' utter dedication to perfection and driving those around him to achieve great things is brilliant, but is balanced by a character that, during his work life at least, has almost no empathy for others around him.

It's very much a warts 'n' all book in that sense, but the passion that Jobs and those that he surrounded himself with brought to their product design is inspiring to read, and leaves the reader wondering whether Apple would be what it is today if he'd been a little more sympathetic. I'm also left wondering whether the Apple he leaves behind will continue to create the new markets that now exist simply because of products Apple created, or improved, way beyond what others had done before.

The other sections of teh book are equally engaging, especially the sections about his time with Pixar where Jobs' more human side seems to come through and the genius of those around him is given more visibility.

I'm left with a view of a (literally) fatally flawed genius, whose passion drove some amazingly skilled people to do great things, but whose personality I dislike as much as I appreciate the products he helped to create.

31 of 31 people found this review helpful

Adam

Driffield, United Kingdom

11/1/11

Overall

"Fantastic"

The best audiobook (and book) I've ever heard (or read). Insightful and well written Jobs led a very colourful life and for those interested in business you'll learn more by listening to this book than you will from the equivalent time in lectures at business school (though I'd probably ignore anything to do with human resource management from the school of Jobs!)

18 of 18 people found this review helpful

Geoff

Great Snoring, Fakenham, United Kingdom

11/18/11

Overall

"Fantastic!"

I didn't think I could manage 25hrs of an audio book, but I was enthralled with it. It confirms that Steve Jobs was not the kind of person many people would want to work for but was a genius who managed to put together Apple twice and Pixar. He was a visionary and he has changed the way many of us now work and play.

12 of 12 people found this review helpful

MariuszJanas

Warsaw, Poland

10/31/11

Overall

"Great biography"

Very well wtitten biography. I am not an apple fan or consumer, but I always admired Steve Jobs. Even though I dont think he was a good person, he revolutionised the world of technology.
I was afraid that this might be a one-sided story, but it seems to give an objective image of Steve's life. The story is based on interviews with Jobs and a lot of other people who knew him.

Highly recomended

17 of 18 people found this review helpful

Sarah

Essex uk

12/11/11

Overall

"Interesting, informative and inspiring"

Must admit I've worked in IT for years, and only recently bought an iPhone and then a iPad so I was curious about Jobs - the man who became a bit of an IT legend. While the book won't fulfil everyone (esp. if you already know a lot about Jobs and his career), for me, it was an interesting insight into a truly inspiring character. I liked it. Not an earth shattering book - but the closest to the true person I'd expect.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Mr

Wakefield, United Kingdom

11/3/11

Overall

"Lessons learned and a great journey..."

For anyone who finds business and the history of computers interesting, this is a must read. It has inspired me to do better both professionally and personally. An excellent book. Oh, and just one more thing, I listened to it on my iPhone.

11 of 13 people found this review helpful

Salbu

Wolverhampton, United Kingdom

11/4/11

Overall

"Amazing Life"

No words to describe how much I enjoyed this. An ultimate classic for 'rebels' and 'odds'.

10 of 12 people found this review helpful

Kirstine

Bonnyrigg, United Kingdom

10/16/12

Overall

"A flawed genius"

I have had Apple computers, etc, since 1988 and think they are wonderful so was intrigued to hear about the life of the man behind so many ground-breaking inventions that have changed to way we interact with computers, listen to words and music and communicate. It's a fascinating biography and lends credence to the belief that geniuses are difficult to live and work with. Steve Jobs was a strange mix of hippie non-conformist who cared little for the trappings of wealth and yet strove to make billions. A perfectionist over design and a visionary over creating things that we didn't think we wanted that we end up feeling unable to live without. His untimely death was a great loss to the world of new ideas. A great listen especially if you love Apple devices.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

James K

Cardiff UK

10/12/12

Overall

"Author pulls no punches"

Really interesting look at jobs life and his achievements. The author pulls no punches when it comes to jobs reputation. A really interesting and enjoyable read.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Wojciech

London, United Kingdom

10/3/12

Overall

"I am not an Apple enthusiast"

Even though I would not buy apple products I would recommend this book to everybody. Well written and narrated, gives an insight on the genius of Steve Jobs.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

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